>>5958832>>5958914>>5958961"Guts, it seems that my presence would only make things worse here. Take Lucio to Casca, and show him the depths of your love while he's still in control. Love will be the key to stop this bloodshed." You manage to catch Lucio one last time as you handed him to his father before he could bite your fingers.
"A-Are you sure? Even if the apostles have detransformed now, I don't know if I'll be able to protect him against so many of them."
"Don't give me that, Guts! You've done far more colossal tasks before while protecting many more! Rendezvous with Rickert and Silat, they're the ones searching for her." You inform him after holding the handle of his Dragon Slayer and feeling the Od of the ones searching for Lucio's mother. "Tell Farnese I'll be with her soon."
"Don't you think we will let you through just because we're not at our peak." The untransformed Zodd shows up with his cleaver along with a line of apostles blocking his exit.
"Hahahaha... HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Guts intimidates Zodd and the others by laughing in his face, placing Lucio behind his back as he closed the helm of the Berserker armor by himself. "Are you kidding me, Zodd? In case that horn of yours was removed along with part of your brain, I'll try to refresh your memory. Even back when apostles were not a thing for us, I managed to beat this form of you all by myself. I've spent the worst of my years cleaving through beasts like you, and you've never once taken me down! Compared to who I was facing just a while ago... All of you are nothing but fodder!"
Guts screams to the skies as he plows through the line of apostles with a spinning slash, already gravely wounding Zodd's jugular in the process. Though his regeneration factor meant he was still alive, his pride and need for a good last fight would likely end on his demise. Your trust was not misplaced.
With none but Gaiseric by your side, you call into the Astral Tree and are guided by its branches, attempting to feel how deep it's roots could go.
While you could sense that the tree was buried deep into the nucleus of the world, something akin to an amalgamation of corrupted Od blocked your sensing, making it hard to know if the abyssal layer was even habitable, let alone if you could go further than what you assumed to be the God Hand dimension.
"To reach the idea of evil, we must first defeat the ones he uses as spokesmen." Gaiseric proclaimed, though that was much easier said than done.
"And what are our chances?"
"To put it lightly, you can imagine fighting four of the Femto we've just faced, only unrestrained and with killing intent. Were it that easy, I would have went there to defeat them without risking any of you. You can leave Void to me, for he and I have unfinished business, though I am not sure you'll be able to face Conrad by yourself, let alone the other three."
